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Dessert

Federal Cake

A fruit cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, dried fruit, wine, brandy, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Federal Cake

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Federal Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the cream or milk, wine, and brandy.

  5. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and grated nutmeg.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  7. Fold in the dried fruit.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air that helps the cake rise and gives a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Dried fruit
Adds moisture, chewiness and sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development low, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, wine, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, cream, wine, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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